The mission of the Honors Project is to open pathways to further engagement for students who are among the most academically motivated at College of San Mateo. We strive to cultivate their ability to collaborate with one another, support their individual achievement, and provide them with the means to make intellectual connections between their own interests and a range of disciplines. We seek to gather students, faculty, and staff from across the college in a supportive community of scholars; here, students, together and independently, may pursue answers to questions they pose both within and beyond the disciplines in which they elect to earn Honors. Completing the Honors Project’s rigorous requirements, our students emerge as intellectually adventurous, self-­confident, and self-­aware contributors to the diverse academic conversations they are joining, and they will enjoy enhanced transfer prospects and a passion for scholarship that will lift them wherever they may go in their lives.

The Honors Project integrates six objectives:

to create a vibrant community of scholars at the center of and very much part of campus life;

to critically engage students and faculty in a shared intellectual experience inspired by active, student-­driven learning, inquiry, collaboration, community, and public scholarship;

to provide students with curricular choice and freedom combined with the direct guidance and support of our most exceptional faculty to foster deep disciplinary, cross-disciplinary, and interdisciplinary learning; and

to assist students in discovering, refining, and achieving their ambitions for transfer and excellence at the upper-­division level and beyond.

Together, we hope to weave academic excellence, undergraduate research, and intellectual and community engagement into the very fabric of CSM’s culture.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs)

Integrate knowledge and theoretical frameworks with learning in courses across the curriculum

Collaborate effectively with peers and faculty in the development and execution of independent scholarship

Participate actively and confidently in leadership roles in both curricular and extracurricular areas